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A Cornucopia of Programs

Information Tools

I have not posted in a while (I’ve been busy) so I decided to do something special. This is a list of all the information tools I could have found in my search for the perfect note taking program. This is just a list, these are not reviews, just a few remarks on my impressions of the program. I haven’t even tried many of them so being on this list is not an endorsement it just means they exist. Not being on the list doesn’t mean anything either, it only means I must have missed it. Some are free and almost all the others have a free trial period.

The prices were correct in October 2014, after that they may change.

My Personal Preferences

Out of all the note taking programs which I have tried Ultra Recall and MyInfo are undoubtedly my favourites. Ultra Recall is more powerful and is probably the one I should be using but MyInfo has a better user interface and although it is not as powerful it is easier to use and the information you want is easier to find in MyInfo. I ought to be using Ultra Recall but the program I find myself using on a day to day basis for general organisation tasks is MyInfo simply because its easier. This blog post is being composed in MyInfo.

For serious writing Scrivener is unrivalled.

If I wanted a Wiki then Connected Text is the tool I would use.

For drawing concept maps, organisation charts and just laying out ideas graphically to sort out my thoughts VUE is the tool which I use, for mind maps I use Freeplane.

So. What is available?

Note Taking Programs

Ultra Recall

This is a very powerful note taking program with a lot of facilities. It can handle very large amounts of data without a slow down in either the navigation or searching. Arbitrary metadata may be associated with any item in the database. A full review is here.

Although Ultra Recall is very powerful I can’t help feeling that this is a program which keeps adding feature upon feature until the simple things you used to do are no longer simple, and the whole thing starts to feel overwhelming.

MyInfo

This is a powerful note taking program with a lot of facilities, it is not quite as powerful as Ultra Recall but it is more user friendly. Tagging/Keywords are much easier to use and searching is easier. It can handle very large amounts of data without a slow down in either the navigation or searching, but the opening of a large file does slow down. The metadata is the same for all items in the database but multiple databases with different data sets and different metadata may be open simultaneously. A full review is here.

WhizFolders

This is a classic two pane organiser with a hierarchical tree. It does have tags (keywords) but it feels like they were added as an afterthought. Editing is a little awkward as you have to switch between edit mode and view mode. It has little to recommend it over MyInfo or Ultra Recall except for the price. There is a review.

Essential PIM Pro

This is an E-mail program with a calendar and reminders, it has tasks which may be given deadlines and it also has a hierarchical note taking section. There are no keywords or tags but there are a limited number of categories (editable) which may be assigned to all types of items. Linking (both in and out) is very good. It is also available for various platforms, there is an android and iOS version available, the different versions can share data.

The note taking section is not as good as some of the note taking programs in this list but note taking is not the primary purpose of this program.

Memo Master

Memo Master is a two pane organiser. It supports spreadsheets as one of the types of document instead of just text documents. There are many facilities but a lot of them are well hidden in the interface, this makes it awkward and tiresome to use, but it does tick the box in the list of features in the advertising. The user interface feels like it was designed by someone who never had to use the program.

There is a free version of this program with a lot of the facilities disabled, but annoyingly the menu entries and buttons for these parts of the program are still there. If you click on one it brings up a dialog box telling you that you need to buy the full version to use this feature.

Right Note

I have never used this program, not even the free trial version but it looks good on their website. This is a two pane organiser with a very colourful user interface. It supports spreadsheets as one of its document types. I don’t know how easy it is to use so I will not pass any judgements but it’s probably worth taking a look.

Silver Note

This may well be a good program when they get it finished but at the moment it is a beta test version being sold as a finished product. There are no import facilities. The drawing tools are buggy. However this program shows great promise. It has a novel hierarchical tagging scheme which is truly innovative. I wish them good luck with their development of this program.

KeepNote

This is a free and open source note taking program. It is a three pane organiser, the pages are formatted in HTML. This program performed very well under load, it can handle very large data sets easily, the navigation did not slow down but the searching did slow down in proportion to the size of the data set. This program does not have keywords/tags and has very few advanced facilities but it does perform well as a very basic (simple) organiser and it is free.

Keynote NF

This is a free and open source note taking program. It is a two pane organiser, the pages are rich text format. This program did not perform very well under load, it slowed down considerably with a moderate data set, the navigation slowed down in proportion to the size of the data set, a few very large items could slow it down just as much as many small data items. This program does not have keywords/tags and has very few advanced facilities but it is free.

SEO Notes

This is a very basic free two pane organiser with very few facilities. I have not tested this program, reading the documentation was enough to convince me that there were much better offerings out there which are free.

The Guide

The Guide is a simple two pane hierarchical outlining program with no keywords or tagging. I used it as a writing tool some years ago but there were some instances where it lost some of the text, I think there is a bug or two in there somewhere. Even when working perfectly it has little to recommend it over some of the other free outliners (like KeepNote).

Personal Knowbase

This is a strange program, there is no tree, the tagging scheme is how you locate the items you want. This program has one of the best tagging schemes that I have seen but it’s a bit of a one trick pony. Although the tagging scheme is excellent the editing of notes is not very good and there is no support for tables or images in items and only very basic formatting of text. This program is no longer under development, for the past few years there have been only very few updates and these are only maintenance updates (fixing bugs).

TreeDBNotes

I have not tried this program but it seems like a fairly ordinary two pane organiser with a hierarchical tree in the left pane and the item content in the other pane. The paid version does have tagging but I don’t know how easy this feature is to use.

Leo Editor

Leo is a plain text outliner and organiser which is also an IDE (integrated development environment). This was written by programmers for programmers, the people who designed it definitely use it the user interface is well designed but a little esoteric. Leo was written in python and it works well as a python IDE. Python scripts can be associated with any outline item. Leo is very powerful but not very graphical.

AM-Notebook

AM-Notebook is a two pane organiser, but with a few extras. It has spreadsheets as one of its item types and it has diagrams as one of its item types. It also has a Calendar, todo list and contacts list, these features are very similar to Microsoft outlook features. There is no tagging or keywords.

AskSam

This program used to be the biggest (and one of the more expensive) two pane organisers around but its web page seems to undergoing maintenance, but it has now been undergoing maintenance for a couple of years. Now I get an error message when I try to go to the page. Version 7 is the most recently released version. It has lots of features but it’s very expensive compared to Ultra Recall.

MyBase

This is one that I have tried. It has a lot of good features but there are also some bad features, like the linking not being very good, it doesn’t support universal links. One of the good features is a hierarchical tagging/keyword system. It does not handle large data sets very well, there seems to be an upper limit of 300MB on the file size.

Surfulater

I have not tried this program but maybe I ought to have done, from the information on the website and a review I read the main emphasis of this program seems to be collecting copies of web pages into a database which can then be viewed offline at a later date even if the web page has changed or no longer exists. Of course you can also take notes with it. The web clippings are arranged into a hierarchical tree. There is also a hierarchical tagging scheme, which seems surprisingly good.

EverNote

Usage Haven’t tried it
License Commercial
Price Sign up for free or paid account with a monthly subscription
Website https://evernote.com/

This is an online note taking solution. You need to get an account to use it. If you always have a connection to the internet then it is probably a good idea but if like me you spend a large percentage of the day without a connection then it doesn’t look so attractive. There are versions of this program for android and iOS and you can share data between devices. It is possible to get a ‘Premium Account’ which you pay a monthly subscription for. If you have a Premium Account then you can download your notes onto your computer or phone or tablet and use them without a connection. But you are paying each month for the privilige. In my opinion ‘software as a service’ is a BAD idea, you rent the software, if you use it for a long time then you end up paying far more than if you had bought a high end piece of software to do the same job.

Zoot XT

Zoot is an unusual program, I am not a fan of it but you might like it. It is a not taking software but it also includes an e-mail program, an RSS feed viewer and a web browser amongst other things. It treats your notes just like e-mails to yourself. The user interface is complex and I didn’t get along with it very well.

LexiCan

Yet another two pane outliner. This one has some limitations. There was a significant reduction in response times when the file grew to just a few hundred notes or a couple of hundred kilobytes, this is very poor in my opinion.

When you open this program it takes a very long time before even the splash screen appears, this is annoying.

LexiCan has some serious issues which hamper its use, most of the other programs can have multiple databases or files open at once. LexiCan can only have one file open at once and when you open another file it automatically closes the file you had open.

This program is produced by a German company, it has been translated into English. However some of the more obscure menus and dialog boxes are still in German and if you get an error which happens frequently the error message which comes up is always in German.

Noteliner

This is a single pane outliner but has an optional second pane which can be displayed or hidden. This program is free but not open source. This program has a lot of hidden depth to it, for instance I didn’t realise until quite recently that it does Gantt charts.

Total Text Container

This is a quirky little program which does a lot of different things but which also has some bugs. It is free. It has many different item types including spreadsheets and diagrams. There has been no development of this program for a long time.

Cinta Notes

Usage Haven’t tried it
License Commercial
Price Free version or a $39.00 uncrippled version
Website http://cintanotes.com/

Cinta Notes stores its notes in a chronological order but in the Pro (paid for) version you have a good tagging scheme with a hierarchical tag tree and so you can gain access to your notes organised in a way you define using this tree. This is a plain text organiser.

Cherry Tree

This is one of the better free and open source note taking programs. There is a tagging scheme but it is not terribly useful. There is syntax highlighting for a number of different computer languages. Images can be pasted into items.

AllMyNotes Organizer

Usage Haven’t tried it
License Commercial
Price $25.50 or Free for a version with limited capabilities
Website http://www.vladonai.com/

A standard two pane organiser but with a quirky colourful interface and a number of different ‘skins’ which change the appearance of the user interface. There are lots of customisation options. No tagging scheme but items can have alarms attached to them so that they will remind you of their alarm at a given time in the future (if you are running the program at that time), or as soon after that as they can run.

The website seems to run a perpetual ‘limited time offer’ just for your country (wherever you happen to be from). This offer has been running for several years now, I don’t know what the limit on the time is but I don’t think there is any need to rush!

Idea Rover

This is a standard one/two pane outliner which is supposedly pitched towards academic writing, it has special facilities for what they call ‘structured citation extraction’ whatever that is. In my opinion it doesn’t have anything to recommend it over Scrivener which is cheaper and better.

This program has an awkward interface with a large ‘ribbon’ of icons across the top of the screen, on a small screen (a laptop) this could get annoying.

Notecase Pro

A two pane organiser program with lots of facilities. There is a tagging scheme. Files can be attached to items and alarms can also be attached to items to bring up a reminder at some point in the future. There is a spell checker and there is a version for Android.

It might well be a good program, I have not tried it out. The prices start low but there are many different prices you can pay for this program depending on the platform, the upgrade options, and whether you want it for more than one platform.

My comments here refer to the 2007 version. The user interface is slick and well thought out, it follows all the standard windows conventions. However many of the features aren’t as useful as they could have been, I think that many features were added in order to tick boxes in the advertising, this program is full of gimmicks which don’t really add to the usability or usefulness of the program.

For example, it has a tagging scheme but the entries are in a drop down box so when you get more than about thirty tags/categories selecting one becomes very awkward.

All the text on a page is in boxes. This is very different to using a word processor, it is a sort of hybrid between a word processor and a desktop publishing program. It ends up being not as good as either of them.

Writing Programs

Scrivener

Scrivener is in my opinion the best word processor around. It supports not just the creation of a document but also the organisation of the notes and research for that document. It may be used as a note taking program although this is not it’s primary purpose. The interface is well thought out, this program has the feel of a program designed by someone who uses the program rather than by someone who’s job it is to design a program.

yWrite 5

yWrite 5 is free but not open source. It tries to be the same sort of composition tool as Scrivener but is not as good in my opinion. Whereas Scrivener is just as good for academic writing as it is for fictional writing yWrite 5 is locked in to fictional writing. Scrivener has a free format note taking section for research and you can organise it the way you want but yWrite 5 has sections for notes on characters and scenes and has a chronological order in which the scenes take place. This may be OK for fictional writing but it cannot be changed if you do not want to organise your notes in this way.

SuperNoteCard (Mindola Software)

This program tries to mimic note cards used by some authors to organise information. The note cards can be very large in that they can hold an enormous amount of text. There are many facilities for organising research and background material for the story. It can also be used for non fiction writing and as a note taking program as the ‘factors’ and ‘categories’ can be edited to suit your own way of organising things.

Having said this I can’t help feeling that although this program is very good at what it does Scrivener does it so much better. However Scrivener is more expensive than SuperNoteCards.

Wiki Programs

Connected Text

Usage Used to use it regularly but has decreased recently
License Commercial
Price From $39.95 up to $114.95
Website http://www.connectedtext.com/

Connected Text is a desktop Wiki. It is incredibly powerful, there is a markup language which is relatively easy to learn the basics of but has a lot of depth so that you can perform extremely useful and complex processing of text. But the depths are not that easy to learn. There is an edit mode where you edit the source code for the page and a view mode where that source code is executed and the resultant page is displayed.

If you are a tech head who is completely at home working with a command line interface then you will probably like Connected Text and you will get one of the finest pieces of Wiki software ever written. If you like doing things with a graphical user interface and like to see what you are going to get without having to switch modes then you will find it uncomfortable.

One of the major drawbacks is that you cannot cut and paste formatted text from another application and paste it into Connected Text without it looking completely different. The style pages are formatted with is controlled by a .CSS file and formatted text will be stripped of its formatting when you paste it.

ZimWiki

Zim Wiki is a simple wiki without a lot of the facilities or the complexity of Connected Text. It is still a useful program, it is written in python and so you can run it on both Linux and Windows. Zim Wiki is free and open source.

WikidPad

Wikid pad is another free and open source simple wiki without much of the power or the complexity of Connected Text. It runs on WIndows, Linux and Mac. The appearance is like a two pane organiser with the pages listed down the left side of the screen and the selected page displayed on the right.

Mapping Software

VUE

VUE or Visual Understanding Environment is a way of setting your ideas out in a graphical way. It is free to download from Tufts University. It does most of what you need and very little of what you don’t need. The user interface is simple but it has a lot of depth. One thing it doesn’t do is print out the maps to PDF files. However a Mac will do this natively and a Windows machine can do this if it has a PDF printing program (like PDF Creator) installed.

design VUE

Someone took the source code of VUE and added the IBIS relationship types and icons from Compendium to it. This program does all the things which VUE does but may be used to produce Argument maps as well. This program comes as an executable JAR file rather than being an installable EXE file.

Compendium

Compendium by the Open University must be one of the best open source free mapping tools around. It is easy to use once you get used to the quirky user interface. The user interface shows it’s Unix/Linux heritage and does not conform to Windows conventions very closely. The maps produced are easy to understand and the program has an over abundance of features. This program feels like it was designed by a committee. On the maps there are several different types of node including a ‘Map’ node which contains a map. When you open this node you are taken to a new map. This means that large maps may be split into chunks. This is quite a useful feature.

Compendium also has a tagging system, nodes may be tagged and the tags may be grouped into folders. Sort of like a semi hierarchical tagging system. The tagging system is quite useful. Compendium also supports transclusion (cloning) which is also useful.

Compendium is let down by a couple of issues, one trivial and the other is a limitation on usefulness.

The trivial issue is that nodes containing text are limited to 32,767 characters of text. If you put any more text than this into a node then it will only exist until you close the program. When you re-open the program that text will have disappeared. No warnings, no error messages it just isn’t there any more. I class this bug as trivial because very few people will put 32 thousand characters (about 10 to 15 pages of A4) into a node. But it is something to be aware of. The text would be better split up amongst several nodes.

The limitation on usefulness is that there are no links in to the program and it does not support universal links.

CMAP Tools

In the documentation there is a heavy emphasis on collaboration and the sharing of maps. There are several public servers which can store your CMAPs so that they might be shared with others and IHMC provides the server software so that you can set up your own private server so that maps may be shared within an organisation.

CMAP Tools when used with the server software supports simultaneous collaborative editing of maps so that several people can edit the same map at the same time. It also has facilities for placing annotations on the map, making suggestions and setting up discussion threads (similar to a bulletin board or forum) to facilitate communications between separate users/viewers of the same map. Of all the programs reviewed here this one probably has the best facilities for supporting multiple users. Compendium is the next best and it’s multi user facilities are not as good although it comes close in my opinion.

There are versions of CMAP Tools for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. A portable version is also available which can run from a USB memory stick.

CMAP Tools is free to download but you must first provide your details and a valid E-mail address. I have not received any spam E-mail from IHMC.

CMAP Tools is a good program but in my opinion for individual use VUE is even better. CMAP Tools is probably better at fast layout and capture of ideas but VUE is more expressive.

Freemind and Freeplane are free and open source mind mapping programs.

Freeplane is a fork of FreeMind which was one of the first free mind mapping programs available. The developers of FreeMind had a disagreement about the way in which FreeMind was to be developed and so some of them left and started Freeplane.

The programs are pretty much identical apart from one or two extras you get with Freeplane, like being able to embed universal links.

At the moment both programs have the same file format so maps may be exchanged freely between the users of both programs but this is not guaranteed to continue as the programs continue to be developed along different paths. For me this is not an problem as I only use Freeplane, but it might be a problem for some people. The file format used by FreeMind and FreePlane has become something of a standard, and can be imported into many other mind mapping programs, including some on the iPad and iPhone, and some browser-based, on-line mind mapping services.

These programs only do mind maps, they do not do cognitive maps. The nodes are in a strict hierarchy and although you may create floating nodes and ad-hoc connections between nodes it would be possible but very cumbersome to construct a concept map this way.

These programs are easy to use, most of their interfaces are very simple and obvious in their functionality but there is also a lot of depth to the programs which are not obvious at first glance. There are many advanced features, like the scripting and node attributes, which are available but do not clutter the user interface. There are keyboard shortcuts for most common functions so that once you have learned the shortcuts you can use this program almost without reaching for your mouse.

There are versions of FreeMind and FreePlane for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Scapple

Scapple is a mapping program similar to VUE. I have never tried it out because VUE is free and this is $14.99 but the video looked very good, it seems well thought out and easy to use. It is from the same people who wrote Scrivener and so it should be good. It is available for Mac and Windows.

Inspiration

Inspiration is a mapping program. It allows other types of map besides a mind map. Mind maps are limited to a strict hierarchy but Inspiration allows links which break the hierarchy. It also has other ways to view the data so your map can also be viewed as an outline.

This is a well thought out and competent program but it is commercial. Freeplane does the same thing and is free. Inspiration does have a few extra bells and whistles but these are not particularly significant and are mainly gimmicks.

MindRaider

MindRaider tries to be everything. It is a mapping tool which is also an outliner and a wiki. One of the problems with it is that it tries to cram too much onto the screen. There are many panels around the central map and so the map is smaller and the screen looks cluttered. On a small screen like a laptop this can be a problem.

The map is innovative in that it keeps the map centred on the selected node, very few mapping programs do this.

The notes which can be stored in nodes are plain text.

MindRaider could be quite a useful program but I must admit it is not a program I have used for any length of time, I installed it and tried it out but got frustrated with the small size of the map and all the panels clustered around it and so it fell into disuse and was eventually uninstalled.

This program is no longer being developed. This is not a problem as long as changes to the operating system or updates to various components of the software environment don’t break the operation of the program, remember what happened to ‘Cayra’.

Instrumind Think Composer

Instrumind Think Composer looks like a very interesting program, the documentation is long and detailed and shows off some very impressive capabilities. Pity about the program. I installed this program and ran it and the screen looked exactly as the manual had pictured it. Unfortunately if I tried to use the program it crashes, not just once but every time and not just one type of crash but it fails in different ways, sometimes it locks up the machine so badly I have to switch the machine off to get it out of its catatonic state.

The customer support at Instrumind were monumentally unhelpful. I have so far tried to install this program on two machines, both with the same result.

This looks like a good program and I would like to try it out. If you want to try it then go ahead, it might work for you. I can’t imagine the company would be able to make a living if their program failed on all machines.

Good Luck!

Other Programs

Tree Sheets

Tree Sheets is just like a spreadsheet for text. It has a quirky interface which follows no conventions other than its own. It will compress text to fit it into a box on the sheet. So you can have pages of text compressed into on small box, it is only when you zoom in that the text becomes readable.

Apart from this one novel trick you would probably be better off using a spreadsheet.

InfoQube

This program is just weird. It is also very complicated. It tries to do everything which Connected Text can do but without the markup language so everything is done through a GUI with tables of properties and context menus but there are so many options that it all becomes very messy.

This program has been in development for a long long time, the final version has always been predicted to be six months away. In 2007 it was predicted to be six months away and now in 2014 it is still six months away. Development seems to be progressing very slowly, I suspect that it is being developed by one person in his spare time.

On the website it says:-

While in beta, InfoQube is free to download and use. Initial release is planned for Q4 2014.Personal licenses will have a special introductory price of just $49.95

In the meantime … you’ve seen what can be don with InfoQube and you think it has a great potential.Perhaps you’d like to give us a helping hand … You certainly can:

You contribute through donations which will be credited towards your purchase of InfoQube licenses!Donate $50 or more and you’ll receive a free Personal License !

Pardon the bad grammar, this was copied straight from the website. First thing to note is that the program stops working after the 60 day free trial period so if you want to continue using it you have to get a ‘Free Personal License’but if you are being forced to ‘donate‘ $50 to be issued with that free license then surely you are buying the license.

The second thing to note is the mobile deadline, Q4 of 2014, when this deadline passes (which it has almost) it will be moved, probably to Q2 of 2015 untill that deadline also passes.

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9 thoughts on “A Cornucopia of Programs”

Thanks for this! Your list is very useful.
Have you considered TagSpaces ? I don’t really know if it could fit in one of your categories. It seems to be a note taking app + file manager. It is cross-platform and can even work self-hosted. The big problem for me is that it modifies the file name to add tags.

I don’t know what to think about TagSpaces yet, I only found out about it when I read your e-mail. There are many programs which I haven’t heard of.

The web site for TagSpaces seems slick but is not terribly accessible. I may take a look at this program. But if it does lengthen file names when adding tags then I can imagine a situation where the maximum path length is exceeded. If this happens then your file system starts behaving strangely and ignoring files with filenames that are too long. The maximum path length for windows NTFS is 255 characters. The path length is the file name plus all the folder names needed to get to it.

Good point, I saw that some users suggested tags to be put in a database file.
It is still in beta I think but it seems very promising:
– Open-source and cross-platform.
– Written in HTML5 (then transformed into native apps). This makes it easy to customize (CSS)
– All notes are single HTML files
– The folder structure and file integrity is preserved. The resulting structure is extremely clean compared to other software that I saw. I use it on a folder synchronized online and I can thus access my tagged notes+files from several places and even online.
– Several file formats are already supported either to view or view/edit.

A quick review based on your criteria:
Connectivity : 8 (supports several file formats natively and the open-source, HTML5 nature makes it very scalable; no web clipper yet but it supported MHTML format so articles could be clipped another way and then saved in the folder)
Classification: 5 (renames file names; but tags are colorful and can be sorted in groups and synchronized)
Formatting: 9 (standard WYSIWYG + many new formats to come and notably ODF editting)
Sense of time: 5 (there are ‘smart tags’ which can generate date tags easily + GTD tags)
Ease of use: 8 (Mobile versions and even self-hosted web version. Easily customizable if you know CSS. The scalability and robustness is huge due to the open-source nature, reliance on standard formats and very clean code + folder structure)
Visual appeal: 8 (slick interface but confusing lack of tree structure.)

Woah dude. I’ve found myself looking pretty hard for a good Personal Information Manager, and methods to organize my computer, and you’ve got a great list here. I didn’t know about MyInfo, but it sounds very much like something that could fit my bill. I’m going to be reviewing a ton of your suggestions and reviews on this blog over the next few days. Cheers!

I also spent a lot of time looking for a good Personal Information Manager, I looked at many and have reviewed them on this blog. There are individual reviews of MyInfo, Ultra Recall and ConnectedText.

MyInfo is very good, Ultra Recall is technically superior but doesn’t have as good a user interface in my opinion. ConnectedText is far more powerful than either of them and you can get it to work the way you want it to work but it takes more work initially although it pays off in the long run.

It just depends on what you want. Do you want a program which is easy to use but the program’s author has decided on the way you will use it and you cannot change the way it works, or do you want a blank slate which allows you to build the structure you want and change virtually everything. The first way is quicker and easier, the second way will be harder and will require more work on your part but you end up with something you have built and which suits you perfectly.

If you want the first way then I would recommend MyInfo, if you want go the second way then I would recommend ConnectedText. But if you chose the second way be prepared for a steep learning curve.

Waht do I use?

I use ConnectedText but with MyInfo linked in. I have a lot of legacy data stored in MyInfo and do not feel the need to transfer it. Both programs can link to each other so I have both programs running and they seem to blur into one another. MyInfo can generate a link to a specific paragraph within an article. ConnectedText can generate a link to a specific page within the Wiki. So it doesn’t matter to me which program I am in.

MyInfo, Ultra Recall and ConnectedText have free 30 day trial periods but I think that it takes more than 30 days to fully appreciate the power of ConnectedText.

Getting the right PIM is always a challenge! I’ve used Zoot, which I like, maybe because it’s quirky, but now am getting more serious about Ultra Recall. It has the heft of a proper commercial program, which I like. Teamed with ResophNotes for quick and dirty note taking, it seems to work well enough.
The Holy Grail still beckons, though. My idea would be something using the functionality of Lotus Agenda (still the king of PIMs IMO), the robustness of Ultra Recall, and the flexibility of Zoot.
I’m working up Pagico at the moment for keeping track of actions (tasks) and contacts: its interface is cool-modern which I like, but its less of a PIM than a small-time project information system. Cross Agenda with it and I’d be happy.
I like Connected text, but too texty for my needs.

Maybe you ought to take a look at ‘InfoQube’ (http://www.infoqube.biz/Home) it started out as a GUI front end for an SQL database but since then it has developed into a very powerful but also very complex PIM, it has the functionality of Lotus Agenda, the robustness of Ultra Recall and the flexibility of Zoot but it also has more than it’s fair share of complexity, expect a very steep learning curve. It is difficult to describe what the program actually does because it does so many things. If you are familiar with a program called ECCO Pro then you will immediately be familiar with InfoQube. InfoQube is like ECCO Pro on steroids, I’m not sure wether that is a good or a bad thing.